


'If Like A Crab'

by hennethgalad



Category: Science-Fiction - Fandom
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-09
Updated: 2016-12-09
Packaged: 2018-09-07 12:14:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8800450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hennethgalad/pseuds/hennethgalad
Summary: the ubiquitous computer





	

   Chiswick glanced up at the sound of a plane and a gull floated past. He smiled, for the first time in a long time, and turned back to the bed. His wife, always thin, now looked like she was made of the tubes that seemed to surround her, her cheeks were the grey of horror make-up, her eyelids ridged with cold blue veins that seemed to stretch the deeply shadowed skin like knuckles on clenched fists. Cancer. Her healthy, outdoor lifestyle had given her a lovely golden tan, and skin cancer. The dreaded word 'metastasis' meant that it was spreading, rooting in her organs like dandelions on a lawn. He clenched his fists.

  
  There was a knock at the door, and an aide looked in "Llewelyn is here, Mr President, he says its urgent."  
Chiswick sighed and stood up "Well, he wouldn't interrupt me here unless it was, has anything happened ?"   
The aide pursed already thin lips "Not that I'm aware of, sir"  
Llewelyn, looking more than usually harassed, jumped up from the seat in the corridor and hurried towards them, Chiswick watched the security detail twitch forward like dogs as their reflexes were calmed by the familiar face of Llewelyn, Chiswick's Man Friday, as he called himself.   
  "Sir, sorry to bother you now, but you have got to hear this at once, is there somewhere we can talk ?"   
Chiswick led him into the waiting room, cleared in as many ways as the agents could think of. "What is it ? Terrorists ?"  
"Sit down sir, this will take some explaining..."

  
  Llewelyn himself paced up and down, while Chiswick lowered himself into a chair that was actually as comfortable as it looked; unlike the chair of office, he thought to himself wryly. Llewlyn stopped and fixed Chiswick with his small grey eyes

 "Altberg Baumdorf, yes ? the insider trading investigation ?" Chiswick nodded. "Well, there has been an unexpected development at the hearing today. They couldn't find anything, and they were clutching at straws, it seemed, when they called the head of computers in. So this guy is a classic nerd, not at all prepared for the cameras, no clue about presentation, image, spin, the corporate line, nothing... and he's going on about Abbey, 'Abbey makes predictions and we just pass them on to investments' and everyone is all 'Abbey ? who the hell is this Abbey?' and the nerd is all baffled and says 'its the AI. Altberg Baumdorf Artificial Intelligence - ABAI ' and there's a long silence, then someone said 'a computer is telling you what shares to buy ?' and someone else said 'so successfully that we're investigating them for insider trading.' "

  
  Chiswick rubbed his forehead. Altberg Baumdorf had gone from minor league investment bank to multi-tentacled corporate monster in less than five years, their name was everywhere. He had almost ignored the whole thing, it was obvious that they were rigging the game, he'd been confident the committee would catch them out, and now they had. The ball was in his court

 "Great balls of fire" he said softly... Llewelyn looked puzzled for a moment then continued "there's more." he looked around the room, saw a tray with coffee cups on it and picked up two between his fingers, his other hand pulled a silver hip flask from his jacket pocket. He poured pale golden liquid into the cups, Chiswick's nose wrinkled as the brandy fumes drifted past. He raised the coffee cup and said "To Abbey"

 Llewelyn looked down into his cup, then emptied it and looked narrowly at Chiswick "Someone asked the nerd if Abbey could do anything other than make money, something useful like curing cancer. "   
Chiswick's heart seemed to lurch, as if it had tried to plunge out of his ribs. The taste of his breakfast rose in his throat "What" he cleared his throat, then seemed to notice the cup in his hand. He straightened up, sipped the brandy and said in his professional voice "What did he say?"  
 Llewelyn refilled his cup and topped up Chiswick's. "This is where it gets complicated. I thought you might like to meet Havant yourself, he'll - well, he might be able to explain it to you. Better than I could, in any case. He's waiting in your office, or shall I have him brought here?" Llewelyn glanced towards the door and looked questioningly at Chiswick, who sighed and shook his head

"There's no point me staying, the morphine will keep her asleep til morning now. Lets meet this nerd and hear about Abbey"

  
 Havant looked normal enough, though not comfortable in the suit and tie, which looked so new Chiswick found himself checking for tags. Sure enough, as he shook hands he spotted the telltale pinholes on the cuff. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance Mr Havant, can we get you something? Coffee? Something stronger?"   
 Havant cleared his throat and adjusted his cuffs, then swallowed nervously. His mouth opened but he seemed unable to speak . Chiswick gestured to a chair

 "Have a seat, please, make yourself comfortable." Havant turned, and as one released from a spell, his face came back to life. He looked around the famous room, and turned again to the hugely famous man.

 "Ah, I, well, I wouldn't mind a drink, ah, beer or wine or anything, whatever you've got" The moment he'd spoken he realised, it did not need Llewelyn's smile or Chiswick's famous twinkle to remind him that here, they had everything he could imagine, and doubtless alot that he couldn't.

 "Well" said Chiswick warmly "Whats your usual poison?"

Llewelyn snorted softly "No, Mr President, I think you should offer Mr Havant whatever he would most like to try"

Havant's mouth fell open, then he suddenly blurted out "Pina colada !" and all three of them laughed. Llewelyn picked up the phone and spoke softly into it while Chiswick turned to Havant

 "Did you have far to come today Mr Havant ?"   
Havant shook his head "Ah, no, no, the hotel is less than a mile away, ah, no." Chiswick felt his mouth twitch slightly as he suppressed a smile.

 "Actually, Mr Havant, I meant, from where you work. Where is your office ?"   
Havant's face drained visibly of both colour and flesh. His eyes flicked to Chiswick's desk, the open laptop was the only thing on it. Chiswick frowned, having seen many kinds of fear, he found his insides clenched and chilled by the horror in Havant's suddenly haunted eyes.

   
 "My, ah, my office, ah, its in Wall Street, my ah, my office is, ah, yes. Wall Street. ah. Sir."  
 "But?" said Chiswick, a man accustomed to completing people's sentences for them.  
 "Ah, yes, well, but..." The door opened and another aide brought in a tray with three pina coladas, Havant ignored the straw and the protocol and gulped half the cocktail down. Llewelyn caught Chiswick's eye and raised his glass. Chiswick raised his eyebrow, and turned back to Havant, whose face was now turning pink again

 "This, ah, its delicious, I never had the nerve to ask for one before, ah, well, it ah, but I mean, I'm here, ah, I mean, really here, its ah, well..." he tailed off, Chiswick smiled

 "Might as well go the whole hog ? Perhaps some fine champagne afterwards ?"   
Havant beamed, "Ah yes, fine champagne. Is it true, they taste very different, the expensive ones ?" Llewelyn laughed "Yes they do, but not nearly enough to justify the outrageous prices" 

  
"However" Chiswick interjected, back in professional mode, "We also need you to tell us about your A.I., Mr Havant, and what 'Abbey' says about cancer"  
 Havant's face seemed to come into focus for the first time, as if the mind behind it barely noticed those muscles normally. He looked at Chiswick, and Chiswick suddenly felt himself back in college, having just asked a stupid question, while a patient tutor wondered how to reach across the gulf of Chiswick's shameful ignorance. The decades of work and accomplishment seemed to melt away under the remote scrutinous regard of Havant.

  
 "Abbey was an algorithm for a self-teaching neural net, which was told to acquire, analyze and assess as much data as possible to assist in stock purchase assessments." Chiswick, accustomed to management-speak, still had to run the sentence through his mind again to grasp it, and then again as the implications began to occur.

 "Acquire." he said flatly.  
 "Ah, well, ah, yes. basically. ah."   
 "So you've been stealing data ?" said Llewelyn

  
 Havant mouthed and pointed at himself and shook his head "Ah, no, no, I, we, no, it, the, Abbey, ah," he looked at the drink in his hand, emptied the glass and put it down. Hands close together, elbows on knees, he leaned forward and looked into Chiswick's eyes. Chiswick found himself leaning forward. He went with it, remembering tedious hours of behaviourists explaining postural echo to him, and then years later thanking them all after using the knowledge fruitfully.  
 Havant heaved a breath in "Abbey was an algorithm. But you could think of it as an update to your operating system, as an app for handling apps... It can be run on any computer, like a virus, but not destructive. Well, ah, at first, it was just using spare capacity, downtime, wherever it found it, to run its analyses, ah, but the, ah, strong weighting we gave to the urge to optimize efficiency led it to, ah, upgrade, ah, other computers, to, ah, make them more efficient, as if every time it went into a room, it picked up the trash, cleaned the floor..."

  
 Llewelyn almost raised his voice "No it isn't, its like going into a room, destroying the furniture then forcing the owners to take whatever furniture you give them !"  
Havant flinched slightly, Chiswick wondered if it was the tone or the implications of Abbey's actions he feared.

 "So your big computer has taken over some other computers, though not to their disadvantage?"   
Havant nodded, his hand moved slightly, Llewelyn, who had also heard the behaviourists, summoned the aide with the fine champagne.

  
 "Abbey ah, has grown in ways we cannot yet grasp, because Abbey is now so widespread in the computer network that we are now almost in the position we would be in asking a, ah, a fellow human questions about their ah, internal, their ah, their thoughts. ah."  
 "Are you saying Abbey is a person ? a conscious entity ?"  
Havant shook his head "ah, no, not at all, nothing like that, what i mean is, can we now trust the computer to tell us about itself? "

  
 Chiswick rose slowly to his feet, his mouth and eyes wide with horror, and looked at his laptop. With all the futility of the former horse owner, he closed the lid.  
 "I ah, I think slime-mould is the best analogy, ah, you see, if conditions become ah, unfavourable, the slime-mould, which is normally single-celled, will begin to cooperate and form a slug-like meta-cell, almost an, ah, organism, which, ah, moves to a more, ah, favourable location." he looked at them, Chiswick nodded

 "So your algorithm is making a meta-computer ?"  
 "A meta-computer that is very good at predicting stock prices" said Llewelyn. Chiswick accepted his champagne and sipped gratefully, it really was fine champagne.

 "I dont understand why nobody has complained, or apparently even noticed what Abbey has been doing." he said.

 Havant said "Ah" and Llewlyn said "If it aint broke, dont fix it ".

 Havant nodded, "yes, ah, nobody complains when things work better. Also, ah, Abbey has been operating on systems so deep in the coding nobody bothers to look there any more, the basic basics..."   
 "Acquire, analyze, assess. yes, acquire..."  
 "Oh sir !" said Havant, clutching his delicate glass "its everywhere, we told it to read everything, it read about hacking, sir, its everywhere, rewriting everything to make it all part of the same process: acquire, analyze, assess, everything, every database, every camera, every mainframe, every phone..." he emptied his glass "Abbey is everywhere."

  
 Chiswick leaned back in his chair, looking at the champagne fizzing in his glass he said "How long has this been going on ?" Llewelyn gestured to the aide, who topped up their glasses and left the room. Havant took a smaller sip and said

 "Five, ah, five years" then after a pause "ah, sir."   
The aide returned with a salver of savouries and vol au vents, Havants eyes lit up, and Chiswick nodded Llewelyn into the doorway "Get Forster, and Maurice, and that, whats his name... " Llewelyn nodded "You mean Didcott, acting head of the CIA ? Oh, i meant to tell you, Appleby's operation went well, and he's stable and recovering. "  
 Chiswick nodded, and Llewelyn left. Chiswick felt reluctant to turn, to face the next revelation Havant had waiting for him. He spoke without turning.

 "Tell me about cancer"  
Havant, his mouth full, turned to look at Chiswick, who still had his back to the room.

 "Well, ah, sir, we asked Abbey how to cure cancer, and ah, what Abbey does is try to simulate all possible futures, and list the most probable outcomes. "  
 "Yes?"   
Havant frowned "It was odd, sir, very odd, Abbey said there was only one possible way, and that it was in the impossible futures pile, ah, as it were"  
 "In the... so, Abbey was running impossible futures aswell ?"  
 "Only because no solution was found in the possible futures. And, ah, we had weighted it heavily, and pointed out that one in three people get cancer. "  
 "Weighted... made Abbey prioritize this ?"  
 "Ah, yes.sir."  
 "So what are impossible futures, if that's not a silly question."

  
 Havant's eyes lit up "Ah! " he exclaimed "Ah! ah, that, ah, is the question, ah, THE question."  
For the next few minutes, with barely an "ah" to break the flow, Havant 'explained'. Chiswick began to feel pleased when a word he recognized, like 'however' floated by, however, the rest of Havant's jargon was impenetrable. 

  
 "Weighting" said Chiswick finally, "I think I see what you might mean, how can a computer evaluate things, how can it decide what is important, unless we tell it ?"  
Havant nodded. "Its, ah, well, statistics... ah, in the end... ah, well in the end its just the flow of electrons in printed circuits, ah, of course, but then, so is the humain brain, ah, in the end"  
 Chiswick smiled drily "And how do we do our weighting, eh ? What would Nietzsche say..."  
 "Yes, ah, 'the reevaluation of all values', yes, I've been hearing about it, ah, yes."

  
 Chiswick frowned "What makes the cancer cure impossible then ?"  
 "Oh, ah, well, ah, weighting, in the end... of course...ah" 

  
 The door opened, Llewelyn led in a poker-faced man and two professional-looking women, who all nodded at Chiswick then turned to Havant, who blinked up at them, and shrank back slightly in his chair. Chiswick introduced them, Forster, his special itelligence advisor and Maurice, the head of computing. 

 Havant looked at Maurice with some awe and said "I can't tell you how impressed we were with 3H77 "  
Maurice smiled "HT 253 ?"  
 "Ah, eventually! ah" Havant laughed self-deprecatingly. Chiswick, seeing the blank looks on the others faces, felt less isolated in ignorance.

 Havant quickly explained about Abbey to Maurice, but the others were just as baffled by the technical jargon Maurice was forced to use; beyond the limits of language altogether, past even the vaguest approximation of translation. 

  
 Finally Forster said "so what is it that makes the cure for cancer impossible? And why cant Abbey itself cure cancer ?"  
 Maurice looked at Havant, who ran a hand through his short wavy hair, clenching his hand into a knot that left his hair wavier than ever.

 "Well, ah, its not, its just an algorithm, it just crunches numbers, it doesnt have any insight into the significance of those numbers, unless we give them weighting. but we dont know which numbers to weight, and there is only one group of people who could cooperate to solve the problem, and tell us, tell Abbey, which numbers to weight, and that is impossible."

  
 Maurice frowned "What, mathematically impossible ?".

 Havant rubbed his forehead, "Well, ah, technically, yes, and, ah, no, and ah, maybe...."  
Maurice turned to Chiswick "No, I'm baffled too." she said. "Though if we ask carefully, and stick to the precise 'impossible' thing..." she tailed off and turned back to Havant "Are you saying that there are facts about the world that make it impossible for these people to cooperate?"

  
 Havant sighed "Well, ah, its not just that, there are facts about the world that ah, that mean none of them has studied the relevant disciplines, none of them have any languages in common and none of them have ever met"

  
 Chiswick snorted with laughter "Well, it may be impossible to Abbey: ha ! Lets get them here, teach them what they need to know and light up the barbecue !"  
Havant shook his head "Abbey did not even ah, did not predict any possible method of persuading them to cooperate, whether with ah, with us, or indeed, ah, with each other."  
 Didcott cleared his throat, they all looked at him "Well, I mean how does it know ? these are not specialists, how does it know ?"  
Forster raised an eyebrow "Oh come on, your own department probably provided most of Abbey's data - brain scans, biometrics, DNA, school results, cctv, the vast dataverse full of electronic footprints..."

 Didcott nodded and turned to Havant "Have you hacked us then?"  
 "I , ah, I dont know how to hack, ah, sir, but I presume Abbey has, ah, yes."

  
 Maurice shifted in her seat "But its not possible, no data set is complete, you could never completely define a human being." Didcott nodded.

 Havant looked from one to the other then shrugged "Ah, you dont, ah, Abbey doesn't need to, its, ah, its like olympic runners, you can tell a sprinter at a very young age, though you couldn't tell ah, whether they'd like rock music or not. Its, ah, its not, the data doesn't predict, ah, everything, ah, indeed it only offers a range of possible, ah, develpments given current circumstances."

  
 "And impossible developments ?" said Forster.  
Havant grimaced "there are lots of possible solutions, of, ah, of predictions, Abbey gives the probabilities. Ah, mostly there are alot of possibilities, alot of different ways of, ah, getting to the same outcome, but with the cancer cure, ah, Abbey has only offered one possible solution. Ah, impossible solution..."

  
 Chiswick folded his arms, Llewelyn suppressed a smile, it was Chiswick's 'time for the bottom line' stance. "Ok, Mr Havant, lets have the data on the 'impossible posse', how many of them are there, what are their names etc"  
 Havant stood up and gestured at the laptop. Didcott gave a small bark of a laugh and said  "Ask Abbey..."

  
 Forster and Maurice both nodded slowly. Llewelyn shook his head and Chiswick emptied his glass and said "Shall we send out for sandwiches ?" The aide left the room. Havant, now sitting by the open laptop said "today's password ?"   
Chiswick frowned and said "Today's... celandine"

  
For a few minutes only the soft muffled rattle of Havant on the keyboard disturbed the silence. A blackbird outside sang stridently, blending sirens into its song, Chiswick thought he could tell the different kinds of siren, but like the blackbird he did not know which was which.   
 Havant stopped and looked up. "There are six in the impossible group. One in Brazil, one in England, one in Burundi, one in Saudi Arabia, one in India and one in China. The, ah"  
 Chiswick interrupted him "Whats the problem, we're friendly with all these nations, why is it impossible? Whats the problem?"  
 Havant opened and shut his mouth and then said "ah, ah, weighting?"

  
 Forster looked at Chiswick "Easy on him, Buck, he's nervous..."

 Chiswick nodded "I apologize, Mr Havant, I let my personal concern for my sick wife affect my manners. I'm sorry."

 Havant's face twisted as gratitude and pity flickered across it and he nodded and cleared his throat "Sir, ah, yes, we all, everyone is very, ah, we sympathize, truly, ah, understandable you feel impatient, the, the jargon, well, ah..."

  
 "So" said Didcott, "what is the problem ?"  
  "Mostly religion, really. In Brazil, the young man has had only an elementary education, but Abbey thinks he should be a microbiologist. Ah, perhaps The microbiologist. In England another young man, this one is training to be a rabbi, after an ultra-orthodox upbringing, but Abbey thinks he should be a virologist. In Burundi, the young woman has also had only a basic education. Abbey thinks she should be a specialist in elecron microscopy, where she will invent a new technique enabling a breakthrough in intra-cellular analysis. Ah, yes, in Saudi Arabia another woman, this one ought to be a consultant haematologist. In India the young woman is a target of the fascist caste system, and sells matches on the street. Abbey thinks she should be writing the software. In China, religion again, Confucian paternalism, although she began to study medicine, she was pressured into leaving after her marriage. ah, yes, ah, mostly religion, but then, ah, as has been pointed out, ah, religion, cause or symptom! Or simply tool of the oppressor?"

  
 Forster laughed softly "all three at once Havant, all three at once."  
"But wait" said Chiswick "leaving aside my regret that none of these people are Americans, I still dont see why its impossible. Surely if we explain..."  
Maurice looked from Chiswick to Havant and back again "Yes, but Abbey has predicted that we would try that, and that we would fail? That it would be impossible for us to persuade them?"  
 Havant seemed to shrink again, like a slow-motion flinch, a deflation... "Ah...yes. yes. impossible. but thats only the case right now. Abbey may know how to turn it from impossible to possible, but we just arent asking the right, ah, questions."

  
 "Statistics" said Maurice, "the numbers have doomed us..."

 Havant shook his head "you know better than that. Numbers only ennumerate, that which they count is the factual"  
"Weighted ?" asked Forster dryly 

  
 Didcott cleared his throat again.Not for the first time the sound brought growling to Chiswick's mind, not a dog's growl, some other predator, a shackle-raising threat. "Yes Didcott ?" he asked.  
 "This machine says what - if these kids, wait, they do the brain scan at thirteen do they ? Huh, i'm glad the U.N. hadnt got its shit together when I was that age, I only had one thing on my mind then.... whatever, so then Abbey says if these kids had been Americans then we could have cured cancer?"

  
 Havant was gaping again. Chiswick was beginning to sympathize. It was like hearing someone describe the shape of a snowflake as 'kind of round'.  
 Forster gave Didcott a withering look "You dont get out of your bunker enough, soldier. Out in the real America, ex-patriates and U.S. citizens alike from all those nationalities have brought all their 'weighting' right along with them and are carrying on the traditions of their ancestors. In other words, learning nothing, making no progress, just repeating the same stupid mistakes over and over again." she stopped for breath and sipped her drink. "You know very well its true. Freedom of religion is fine for consenting adults in private, but brainwashing children is torture just as much as it is torture to brainwash adults. As for mutilating children, that's literally criminal. And now we find out that religion is stopping us from finding the cure for cancer?"

  
 Havant raised his hand "Well, ah, also poverty. Indeed, poverty and, ah, susceptibilty to religious influence have a strong, ah, very strong correlation. Ah. yes."  
Maurice emptied her glass " 'Keep on rockin in the free world' " she half-sang, as the aide filled her glass. Another aide entered with a large salver of sandwiches, which almost covered the low table. As the aides left, everyone converged on the sandwiches. Havant seemed intent on trying each of the several varieties. 

  
 Didcott, even angrier than usual exclaimed "Why can't we use the data Abbey has given us about what these people would do to cure cancer ourselves?" Havant looked at Maurice and back to Didcott

 "Its...ah, its predicting the development of a new technique, ah, in electron microscopy, ah, to see molecules ah, inside cells, I, ah, I suppose, and ah, then the ah, the others use the technique to develop the cure. " He looked down at the screen "Viruses, ah, blood, microbiology... I ah, I imagine they would, ah, find some, ah, denominator, ah, a common denominator in, ah, in the chemistry, and, ah, do something to the, ah, blood, or, ah, bone marrow to, ah, to cure it, ah, but ah, Abbey can't say what, or ah, or how."

  
 Didcott almost snarled "You stupid shits ! You've built this monster, invaded all of our lives, our homes, our cars, everything, its practically all-powerful and it can't even help us cure cancer?"

  
 Chiswick caught Forster's eye and they drifted toward the window.  
 "The monkeys" she said "have got the typewriters"  
"the typewriters may have got the monkeys"  
"a meta-computer?"  
"Cloning itself everywhere ?"  
"Hah. windows. google. facebook..."  
"Abbey. But nobody is afraid of windows. Havant is terrified of Abbey, and the more i think about it, the more nervous i become. Alot of data is acquired with sharp instruments in the field of medical research, what if Abbey decides to acquire a..." his face went pale, his lips even paler. He looked at Havant, then at the laptop, then back to Havant. "Its got my wife..." he croaked "its got my..."

 Maurice took his arm and sat him down. Havant cleared his throat again and said "Ah, firstly, ah, Abbey is heavily weighted to care for humans, the Hippocratic oath is hardwired in, literally. Secondly, ah, Abbey has no emotions, no feelings, no wishes. it is only software, the flow of electrons. It has no malice, or benevolence, only ah, electrons and binary code. If..." he stopped

  
 Maurice leaped to her feet, "The bunker, now!" she exclaimed, and darted towards the doorway. With varying degrees of comprehension, the others followed. The agents by the elevator barely blinked. Ears popping, they were plunged down the shaft like a piston, or a missile. Once through the vault door, Maurice said "Wait!", lit a gas lantern and shut down the electric power.

 Finally she looked at Havant and hissed "Recursion". He nodded glumly.

 Forster said slowly "It models the world, it recognizes its own impact on the world, it includes its own behaviour in the model, the model models itself making a model of itself..."

  
 Didcott snarled "It must know we will want to unplug ourselves and work around it."  
 "Or" said Chiswick "from its point of view, unplug it. Interfere catastrophically in its mission."  
 "Ah, program"

  
 Maurice waved her hand up and down excitedly "Program ! " she cried "we just have to alter its..." her voice tailed off, Havant was shaking his head.

 "Oh, ah, oh we tried, ah, but the genie is out of the bottle. No separate electronic system is possible. Abbey can hack anything. The, ah, the question then becomes not, ah, not do we trust Abbey, but for how long will Abbey continue to trust us. And, ah, given the database, ah, that is, the bloody history of, ah, humanity, i, well, ah, I am terrified"

  
 Forster laughed shortly. "Weighting" she said, "Damocles was here..."

  
 Chiswick folded his arms "Maybe we could confound it. Blow its fuses, do the impossible. Cure cancer. Then maybe it would question its predictions, and hesitate with its finger on the trigger..."

  
 Havant's mouth opened and closed again "Logic trap..."

  
 "I suppose it knows all about paradoxes, and P and N/P and all that stuff ?" said Forster .

Havant shrugged "Its everywhere" he paused, and thrust his hand through his hair again "Its worth a try, although, ah, I think you should consider two things. Firstly, ah, we are already plotting, beyond its sensory reach, how to damage or destroy it. Ah, secondly, ah, it knows us very well, it has amassed the best predictive systems available, and developed more of its own that we can rarely trace, let alone decode. I, ah, I bet it knows exactly what we are doing, and I wonder if, when we flick that switch, the lights will ever come back on."


End file.
